Relationships Need Work, Retirement Requires Coaching
If you have been reading my newsletter for years, you may remember when I first began publishing it that I wrote exclusively about the transition to retirement. Like people, businesses also go through transitions and there have been several in my writing career as a coach and therapist. About 5 years ago, I broadened my newsletter focus to include all kinds of work and life transitions.
Over the course of time, however, clients reaching out to me for non-retirement coaching often needed therapy rather than coaching. Consequently, my coaching practice has been almost exclusively related to retirement issues.
Two things I’ve noticed over recent years in my coaching practice: clients were contacting me for retirement coaching and professionals were asking me to do presentations, interviews, and podcasts on retirement issues. These trends have renewed my desire to concentrate my coaching practice on retirement, especially because I’m semi-retired and loving the free time I’ve earned. For those reasons, you’ll find my future newsletters focused more on retirement and on meeting the needs of more than a quarter of our population who are in that stage of their lives.
However, rest assured you will be able to take the information in these communications and use it in all aspects of your life, no matter what stage of life you’re currently navigating. As you’ll see, an individual’s retirement affects many relationships in a family and community.
Special Relationships
This month is about honoring those special people in your life on Valentine’s Day, so I’ll be focusing on relationships and how retirement affects not only spouses or partners but the whole family as well. Retirement doesn’t happen in isolation. It starts with yourself, your partner, family, friends, and affects all aspects of your personal and work relationships. These meaningful relationships should be considered and valued in your transition to retirement.
Healthy, quality relationships contribute more to a successful retirement than any amount of money. Without healthy relationships, many life stages can feel empty, but this is especially true in retirement. Let’s reflect on some of the relationships affected by your retirement.
Spouse/Partner Relationships
Love is much more than a feeling. Our seasoned generation of boomers has had a lot more experience with this emotion because it has been tested over time. Some of us have passed this test and others, for various reasons, have had to start over with someone else. Hopefully, it’s been better the second time around.
If you were born in the first 10 to 15 years of the postwar baby boom, you probably have already sent your last child off to college and many adult children have graduated and are now raising families of their own.
Consequently, we are affectionately referred to as empty nesters. For many couples, this empty nest creates the opportunity to refocus most their time on each other just like they did when they first met. What does the quality of that relationship look like and have you nurtured your relationship over time?
For too many of us, our relationships have concentrated on kids, work, and getting through that busy time of life. You say to yourself, “I’ll attend to that other relationship later,” but often “later” is a long time in coming. In retirement, it’s now important to turn your attention to your life partner. Unlike in earlier times, many of your conversations won’t be about work woes, child rearing issues, and family challenges. Retirement discussions become more focused on planning your future together when work and kids are no longer your top priorities. What will you do as a couple and individually based on your interests? Where do you want to live if you move and who will your retirement affect in your close circle of family, friends, and colleagues? Conversations about money, travel, lifestyle, extended family needs, and friendships will replace childcare, kids’ school/sports activities, and work schedules.
Ten years ago, I wrote a newsletter entitled “I Married You For Better Or Worse, Just Not For Lunch” and I stressed the need to maintain a certain degree of autonomy in your relationship.This means that you must have your own retirement identity and not expect your partner to entertain you, plan your day, and be your only buddy. You must find your own interests, hobbies, and new friends, yet have some things that you do together. It’s about yours, mine, and ours in retirement. If you follow that simple rule, you’ll have so much more to share at the end of the day.
Friends And Colleagues
In the presentations I’ve done for government agencies and private companies, the importance of relationships with colleagues and friends as well as family members is often a major topic of conversation as employees prepare to retire. Participants express concerns about maintaining their work friendships when they aren’t at work anymore. The more interests you share with colleagues at work, the longer those relationships will last after retirement. However, this won’t happen automatically. You must work at it!
Some friends and colleagues are proactive and will initiate contact after retirement and others are reactive and will be happy to hear from you but are not used to initiating contact and scheduling a time to get together. If you can tolerate doing most of the work in the relationship, go for it. But if not, you may have to reevaluate and decide that it’s just too much work. That is why some see post-work time as an opportunity to renew old relationships which they haven’t had time to nurture and an opportunity to establish new relationships.
Adult Children
Has your last adult child has finished college, married, and started a family or are your children still in the educational or training process? As you retire, you may be thinking about spending more time with your adult children, but they may be too busy to meet those expectations. I often think of the lyrics of a song that came out in 1974 by Harry Chapin, “Cat’s In The Cradle.” It’s so melancholy because the dad is trying to spend some time with his son who is now too busy to see him, just as his dad was when his son was growing up. As the lyrics of the song go:
“As I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me.”
You need to recognize that’s where they are in their stage of life: exactly where you were at one time. They have full lives with work and raising children. They will have time for you, but maybe not as much time as you expect. That’s why it’s critical that you build relationships in your retirement that will meet the new needs you will have. You don’t want to have your adult children feeling guilty because they see you at loose ends but don’t have enough time to do things with you.
Giving your adult children breaks here and there by babysitting and doing projects with your grandchildren is great! Go for it! You want to be an important part of your grandchildren’s lives. However, beware. Childcare and “doing” for your adult children should not be expected just because you are no longer working and it shouldn’t take the place of the job you just left. You want to be careful not to intrude or be intruded upon. Healthy boundaries are the key here. Find that balance so when you’ve spent time with your grandchildren, you leave with both of you wanting more.
Evaluating Relationships
As you look at your circle of family, friends, and colleagues, begin to think about the quality and importance of those relationships. Which relationships do you want to continue to nurture? Will you make time for those interactions and will they have time for you?
This is certainly a project in process. Here are some suggestions for exploring and evaluating your current relationships.
- Begin the conversations about yours, mine, and our retirement now before you make the transition so you and your spouse or partner are on the same page.
- It takes a village – build a strong support system of family and other healthy couples to enrich your relationship and anchor you when you’re planning your future.
- Let your adult children know what you’re thinking and feeling in the planning process. They will feel relieved knowing you have a plan.
- Initiate conversations about retirement with work friends and talk generally about your plans so as not to impact your work project assignments. Confide in them about the importance of staying in touch.
- Reach out for professional help when your retirement transition becomes too overwhelming.
Waiting until you’re already retired and feeling at loose ends could be fatal for a successful retirement. Remember the old tried-and-true quote by Benjamin Franklin: “If you are failing to plan, you are planning to fail.” Don’t be one of those people who fails retirement. Make your plans before you retire from work so you don’t end up retiring from life. Be flexible when life changes so you can change with it. Adaptability is key!
Stay tuned next month when I’ll be writing about “Finding Purpose in Your Retirement.”
Dee
Dee Cascio
Author, speaker, Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Life Coach, Retirement Lifestyle/ReCareer Coach, and Life and Work Transitions Strategies Coach.
As you face changes and transition in life and work, I welcome the opportunity to assist you through corporate presentations, group seminars, and community workshops. Please contact me.
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